Professional football has one of its big players back: the former Bayern star Arjen Robben returns to his youth club FC Groningen. The Dutch first division announced. Robben, 36, had announced the end of his career at the end of the 2018/2019 season, but had recently kept fit at Bayern.
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“During this time, the club can use all the help it can get in the corona crisis,” said Robben in a video message. “I took part in many actions myself and thought about what else I can do. It started to tickle and now it is my mission.”
Details about the comeback should be announced on Sunday – then Groningen and Robben want to hold a press conference together. In the Eredivisie, the club was in ninth place when the league was only interrupted in March due to the corona crisis and was finally ended prematurely.
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Robben started his career in 1999 in the youth of the Groningen, at 16 he made his debut for the club’s first team. It was the start of a great career. In 2002 he moved to PSV Eindhoven, after which he played for Chelsea, Real Madrid and Bayern. He was particularly successful with the Munich team, including winning eight German Champions and Champions League winners in 2013 – when Robben scored the winning goal 2-1 over Borussia Dortmund.
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The new season in the Eredivisie should start on September 12th. Then fans should even be allowed to go back to the stadiums, the Dutch government had said that only a safety distance of one and a half meters between individual fans had to be guaranteed. However, to prevent the Corona virus from spreading through the air, the government banned fans’ chants.
The Dutch championship had been canceled on April 24, and no champion was chosen. The Dutch association KNVB has announced that it will use the plans for the restart of the Bundesliga for the new season.
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